Star Wars actor Adam Driver hilariously blamed “wokeness” for the killing of the beloved character Han Solo in the franchise’s last trilogy during a sketch on Saturday Night Live (SNL). “I’d like people to stop coming up to me on the street saying, ‘You killed Han Solo.’ I didn’t kill Han Solo, Wokeness killed Han Solo,” Mr. Driver joked during the Dec. 9 episode of SNL. The joke referred to his Star Wars character Kylo Ren killing Han Solo in “The Force Awakens” movie, a development that was controversial among the franchise’s fans. He delivered the joke during a monologue while playing the piano and reciting a letter of Christmas wishes to Santa Claus.
This was Mr. Driver’s fourth time hosting SNL. He had previously hosted the show in 2016, 2018, and 2020.
In a recent interview with CNN, Mr. Driver mentioned being harassed due to the scene. “Somebody reminds me about that every day … Not every day, but yeah. It used to be more, but now it’s probably once a month someone will let me know that I killed Han Solo.”
Despite the significance of the scene, he said that shooting the sequence was not difficult. “Harrison (who played Solo) was so generous and contemplative, and to me, that was a great moment on set, even though it was his death,” he shared.
It is unclear what exactly Mr. Driver was referring to when he said “wokeness” killed Han Solo. The film was made under the Walt Disney banner, a company that has been criticized for pushing a woke progressive agenda through its movies and has seen the box office performances of its films suffer in recent years.
The last time a Disney movie made over $1 billion was Star Wars in 2019. That year, seven out of nine Hollywood movies that grossed over $1 billion globally were from Disney. But since then, things have not gone exactly well for the company.
Disney’s other offerings in recent years, such as “Strange World,” “Lightyear,” “Elemental,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” and “The Haunted Mansion,” have not performed well at the box office and have been labeled as duds.
Speaking at the DealBook Summit in New York late last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that he would no longer tolerate the prioritizing of messaging over storytelling in movies. “Creators lost sight of what their No. 1 objective needed to be. We have to entertain first. It’s not about messages.”
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company admitted that “consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest … often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.” After reaching a peak of around $197 in March 2021, Disney’s shares have fallen to roughly $92 as of Dec. 8.
Elon Musk recently took a shot at Disney CEO Iger after the company pulled out advertisements from his social media platform X. “He should be fired immediately. Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company,” Mr. Musk wrote in a Dec. 7 X post.
The blowback faced by Disney is also evident from the fact that an October episode of South Park mocked Disney executives for pushing diversity in franchises like Star Wars. The episode specifically targeted Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, who had overseen the recent Star Wars trilogy as well as all of the franchise’s series on Disney+.
